A compilation of daily news articles from around the United States about deaths (including both people and animals) that appear to occur in the context of a past or present intimate relationship, focusing on 2009-present. (NOTE: this blog is limited to incidents that appear in the media and are captured by our search terms. We recognize this is not an exhaustive portrayal of all deaths resulting from intimate violence.)
When is society going to realize intimate violence makes victims of us all?

Sunday, May 1, 2011

A man shot and seriously wounded his girlfriend who "played dead" as the man turned the gun on himself in Stream Side Apartments near Olde Towne Gaithesburg on Saturday morning, county police said.

The 42-year-old man died. The 54-year-old woman was taken to a hospital where she was undergoing surgery for a "serious but not life-threatening" wound, said Lt. Robert Bolesta of the county police department’s major crimes unit.

Neither person has been identified as police attempt to notify family.

Police were called to the 400 block of North Summit Avenue around 11:15 a.m. after a neighbor reported "sounds of yelling and at least one gunshot fired," Bolesta said.

Gaithersburg and Montgomery County police found a woman in the stairwell of the three-story apartment suffering from a "serious gunshot wound to the upper extremities," Bolesta said.

Officers applied a tourniquet and interviewed the victim, who told police that her boyfriend had shot her, Bolesta said. She told the officers that she "played dead."

"She then indicated that he then turned the gun on himself and killed himself," Bolesta said.

After determining that no other people were in the apartment, based on the information from the victim, three officers from Gaithersburg and county police used a shield as they entered the apartment where they found the man dead, Bolesta said.

Police from the county’s forensics and major crimes units were processing the scene and interviewing neighbors early Saturday afternoon.

A young woman who had recently moved to an apartment below where the couple lived said she was not at home when the incident occurred and did not know the couple. She said that she had never heard any kind of trouble during the short time she had lived there.

Police do not know the reason for the shooting and are looking into whether there is any history of calls for police to the apartment, Bolesta said.

Police are treating the incident as a suicide, he said. There are no other suspects in the incident.

"We’re trying to determine what occurred, why it occurred," Bolesta said. "[The victim]’s in serious surgery and we likely won’t be able to interview her until tomorrow."